OBITUARY: Hazel Fox, of Yamaroo Hostel, Yackandandah, dies aged 107

Hazel Fox died peacefully in her sleep last Thursday, with her family grateful for the "Rolls-Royce" standard of care she received from Yackandandah's Yamaroo Hostel and the Albury and Wodonga hospitals.

Her daughter Lesley Baker on Monday described Mrs Fox as a remarkable woman, a single mother at a time when little support existed.

"She lived all over the place, she got jobs in Sydney, she got jobs up in Surfers Paradise, she got jobs here, there and everywhere," Mrs Baker said.

Born in Tumbarumba on December 2, 1914, Mrs Fox was the fifth of six children.

During World War II she worked in a Bandiana army office, adding up inventories and accounts, while other workplaces were in New Zealand and the house at Jenolan Caves.

Often employed in housekeeping or caring for children, she was a nanny in Paris for two years.

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With little French, she would "not understand" when the local police frowned on her charges playing on the grass at parks.

"Then the penny would drop and the kids would come off the grass and then as soon as the gendarme had shifted on, out they went again with the ball," Mrs Baker said with a laugh.

Alongside Mrs Fox's career, which lasted until she was about 80, developed a passion for travelling.

"I'd saved up some money and I paid for half of a trip for her on a bus around the back blocks of NSW and I think I created a monster," her daughter recalled.

"That was one of her first trips and she loved it.

"She travelled the world on ships, she used to save all her money and then she'd go on a boat tour.

"She travelled the Trans-Siberian railway without a word of Russian, on her own and she had a ball."

Mrs Fox's other hobbies included gardening, knitting, golf, going for walks, playing cards, watching tennis and playing puzzles on the computer.

She belonged to a lapidary club, designing her own jewellery, and could knit somebody a cardigan to the right size just by looking at them, no pattern required.

"She drove up until she was 100, I've got her car sitting out the front of the house," Mrs Baker said.

"It's a Ford Escort ... no power steering and no air conditioning ... she bought it as a demonstration model back in 1990-ish."

Mrs Fox made a plan for each day and ate seasonally and regionally, always loving her vegetables.

Kind and loyal to loved ones, "she could be independent to a fault; feisty, argumentative, but she always made you think".

Also survived by three grandchildren and many great-grandchildren, Mrs Fox's life will be celebrated on Thursday at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Yackandandah, at 11am, with the service to be livestreamed.

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